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Tărtăria tablets
The Tărtăria tablets are three tablets, discovered in Tărtăria (Groapa Luncii/Gura Luncii), Romania. They bear incised symbols that have been the subject of considerable controversy among archaeologists, some of whom claim that the symbols represent the earliest known form of writing in the world. Discovery The tablets were discovered during the spring of September,1961 at about from the well-known site of Alba Iulia. Nicolae Vlassa, an archaeologist at the Cluj Museum, along with Iuliu Paul from the University of Alba Iulia and student Attila Laszlo first travelled to Tărtăria - Groapa Luncii for a survey excavation, to study the stratigraphy. Bellow the national highway was a small house where Kurth Horedt had also excavated, here in this field Vlassa unearthed three inscribed but unbaked clay tablets, along with other artefacts. All three have symbols inscribed only on one face. Similar motifs have been found on pots excavated at Vinča in Serbia and a number of other locations in the southern Balkans. The unpierced rectangular tablet depicts a horned animal, another figure, and a branch or tree. The others have a variety of mainly abstract symbols. The purpose of the burial is unclear, but it has been suggested that the body was that of a shaman or spirit-medium.Alasdair W. R. Whittle, Europe in the Neolithic: The Creation of New Worlds, p. 101. Cambridge University Press, 1996. Excavation Vlassa's excavation was divided into four cultural layers of stratigraphy, finding a rich amount of ceramic fragments in the first three layers dated to Vinča or Turdas culture. In the fourth and oldest layer Vlassa discovered a pit depositing several artefacts; including the tablets. Vlassa didn't take any photographs of his discoveries, made several errors in his measurements and produced no sketches of the ceramics in the first few layers. Although his precision was apparently commended, his preliminary report lacked information on the physical excavation, and the dimensions of the pit or its location, only a very low resolution image was provided of the supposed location of the pit when published, and inaccurate sketches of the Tablets. Strangely it was rumoured that he wasn't present when the tablets were discovered, there was never an explanation for his absence. A lot of attraction and controversy was brought to Vlassa’s discovery, as well as one of his own colleagues claiming that he forged the tablets himself and the site was never reopened until 50 years later. Artefacts Tablets Buried with Milady Tărtăria (the remains) were three unbaked clay tablets,as a result of humidity. Two rectangular (one with hole present) and one circular (hole present). Their dimensions are as follows; 2.3 x 3.6 x 1.15 cm, 6.3 x 3.15 x 0.85 cm, and 6.1 x 6 x 2.1 cm. All tablets were inscribed only on one face. Milady Tărtăria In the fourth layer Vlassa uncovered a hole, later identified as a ritual pit. Inside he found the remains of what he dubbed was a full grown male, but following his excavation the bones based on metric and morphological features they were corrected to belong to a woman, and was hence named the “Milady Tărtăria”. Suspected to be a high priestess or a shaman-woman, recent re-evaluation of the artefacts by Marco Merlini (Prehistory Knowledge Project 2003) suggest that she was most likely a revered holy woman. From Milady Tărtăria’s skeleton her skull and pelvis bones were missing. The assertion of her age at death was approximated from the resorption of spongy tissue, certain pathological degenerative processes of some bones and the aspect of the pubic area, estimating from 35-40 or 50-55 years old, considered old for her time period. Upon discovery Vlassa recorded that the bones were found ‘charred, disfigured and broken’, hypothesising the cause of death as cremation from a ritual sacrifice. Other archaeologist didn't believe this to be the case, opting for the theory that the result of her death was by a fire. Chemical testing of the bones by Merlini, revealed that the ‘charred’ appearance was actually from the absorption of oxygen hydrate and insoluble humates from the burial site. Her height reached 147 cm tall, calculated from the length of her radius, tibia and cubitus, she was a small woman. It was based off this height and the gracile features of the bones that suggests Milady Tărtăria is of mediterranean type. The Merlini's project also discovered degeneration in her right femur, making her right leg shorter that would of caused her to develop a limp since youth, and in her spine, giving her a bent over posture. On top of this she suffered from scoliosis, deforming her right chest and shoulder. Vlassa concluded that a cannibalistic ritual had taken place, as they were used in Danube civilization. But in comparison of sites of Danube cannibalism the bones are usually scattered on the ground, not buried in tombs. Others Among the other bones was a single charred animal bone, possibly a funerary ritual. She was buried with two alabaster Cycladic idols, twenty-six burnt idols, a spondylus shell bracelet; a rare shell that Danubians imported from the Mediterranean shores Dating The tablets are generally believed to have belonged to the Vinča culture, which at the time was believed by Serbian and Romanian archaeologists to have originated around 2700 BC. Vlassa interpreted the Tărtăria tablets as a hunting scene and the other two with signs as a kind of primitive writing similar to the early pictograms of the Sumerians. The discovery caused great interest in the archeological world as it predated the first Minoan writing, the oldest known writing in Europe. In Merlini's project Milady Tărtăria 's bones were carbon dated to 5370-5140 BC. Upon discovery Vlassa baked the soft tablets in attempt to quickly preserve them, but for this reason the tablets cannot be directly tested using C14. The estimated date of the tablets are around 5200 - 5500 BC, pushing the date of the tablets (and therefore of the whole Vinča culture) much further back, to as long ago as the time of the early Eridu phase of the Sumerian civilization in Mesopotamia.Carl J. Becker, A Modern Theory Of Language Evolution, p. 346. (iUniverse, 2004) Still, this is disputed in the light of apparently contradictory stratigraphic evidence.H. W. F. Saggs, Civilization Before Greece and Rome, p. 75. (Yale University Press, 1998) If the symbols are indeed a form of writing, then writing in the Danubian culture would far predate the earliest Sumerian cuneiform script, writing of the Minoans or Egyptian hieroglyphs. They would thus be the world's earliest known form of writing. This claim remains controversial. Interpretation The meaning (if any) of the symbols is unknown, and their nature has been the subject of much debate. Scholars who conclude that the inscribed symbols are writing base their assessment on a few conclusions, which are not universally endorsed. First, the existence of similar signs on other artifacts of the Danube civilization suggest that there was an inventory of standard shapes of which scribes made use. Second, the symbols make a high degree of standardization and a rectilinear shape comparable to archaic writing systems manifest. Third, that the information communicated by each character was a specific one with an unequivocal meaning. Finally, that the inscriptions are sequenced in rows, whether horizontal, vertical or circular. If they do comprise a script, it is not known what kind of writing system they represent. Some archaeologists who support the idea that they do represent writing, notably Marija Gimbutas, have proposed that they are fragments of a system dubbed the Old European Script. Others consider the pictograms to be accompanied by random scribbles. Some have suggested that the symbols may have been used as marks of ownership or as the focus of religious rituals. An alternative suggestion is that they may have been merely uncomprehending imitations of more advanced cultures, although this explanation is made rather unlikely by the great antiquity of the tablets—there were no literate cultures at the time from which the symbols could have been adopted. Colin Renfrew argues that the apparent similarities with Sumerian symbols are deceptive: "To me, the comparison made between the signs on the Tărtăria tablets and those of proto-literate Sumeria carry very little weight. They are all simple pictographs, and a sign for a goat in one culture is bound to look much like the sign for a goat in another. To call these Balkan signs 'writing' is perhaps to imply that they had an independent significance of their own communicable to another person without oral contact. This I doubt." Colin Renfrew, Before civilization: The radiocarbon revolution and prehistoric Europe, p. 186 (Jonathan Cape, 1973) Another problem is that there are no independent indications of literacy existing in the Balkans at this period. Sarunas Milisauskas comments that "it is extremely difficult to demonstrate archaeologically whether a corpus of symbols constitutes a writing system" and notes that the first known writing systems were all developed by early states to facilitate record-keeping in complex organised societies in the Middle East and Mediterranean. There is no evidence of organised states in the European Neolithic, so it is likely that they would not have needed the administrative systems facilitated by writing. David Anthony notes that Chinese characters were first used for ritual and commemorative purposes associated with the sacred power of kings; it is possible that a similar usage accounts for the Tărtăria symbols. Sarunas Milisauskas, European Prehistory: A Survey, pp. 236-237. (Kluwer Academic / Plenum Publishers, 2002) See also *Vinča signs *Gradeshnitsa tablets *Vinca-Tordos culture *Prehistoric Romania References Bibliography *Haarmann, H. 1990 Writing from Old Europe. The Journal of Indo-European Studies 17 *Makkay, J. 1969 The Late Neolithic Tordos Group of Signs. Alba Regia 10, 9-50 *Makkay, J. 1984 Early Stamp Seals in South-East Europe. Budapest *Winn, Sham M. M. 1973 The Sings of the Vinca Culture *Winn, Sham M. M. 1981 Pre-writing in Southeast Europe: The Sign System of the Vinca culture. BAR *Comsa, A., Merlini, M., & Nikolova,, L. 2016 Western-Ponic Culture Ambience and Pattern *Lazarovici, G. & Merlini, M. 2005 New Archaeological Data Referring to The Tartaria Tablets. Romania *Lazarovici, G., Lazarovici, C., Merlini, M., Bindea, D., & Suciu, C. 2011 Tartaria and the sacred tablets. Cluj-Napoca: Editura Mega *Luca, S 2008. Proceedings of the International Colloquium. Sibu: Lucian Blaga Univ *Rudgley, R. 2000 The lost civilizations of the Stone Age. New York, NY: Simon et Schuster External links *"Signs on Tărtăria Tablets found in the Romanian folkloric art", by Ioana Crişan. *"Milady Tărtăria and the discovery of the Tărtăria Tablets", by Marco Merlini *"The Tablets from Tărtăria", Wikipedia. Category:Neolithic Category:Prehistory of Southeastern Europe Category:Undeciphered writing systems